Race, Place and Opportunity: Racial Change and Segregation in the Chicago Metropolitan Area: 1990-2000

Authors:
Nancy McArdle

Date Published:
January 01, 2002

Will metro Chicago, currently in its last decade with a white majority, move forcefully towards establishing equal opportunity or will the emerging majority continue to be isolated from housing and educational opportunity?

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Minorities contributed all of metro Chicago’s net population growth during the 1990s, but stubbornly high levels of segregation for blacks and increasing segregation rates for suburban Latinos suggest that much remains to be done to insure that these growing populations have equal access to all communities. With the number of whites declining in the City of Chicago and essentially unchanged in the suburbs, Latinos have been the overwhelming driver of population growth, and Asians have also seen dramatic rates of increase. (This report presents data for Latinos, who may be of any race, and the non-Latino members of the white, black, and Asian/Pacific Islander racial groups.) At current rates of change, the Chicago metro area will be “majority-minority” in a decade--already the situation for the school-age population. Latinos will outstrip blacks as the largest minority group well before then. The question now looms: will metro Chicago, currently in its last decade with a white majority, move forcefully towards establishing equal opportunity or will the emerging majority continue to be isolated from housing and educational opportunity?

Minority growth has been especially strong in the suburbs, where Latinos now constitute one in ten residents, up from one in twenty in 1990. It is especially disturbing, therefore, that the largest increases in overall segregation are for suburban Latinos, levels beginning to approach that found in the city of Chicago. Indeed, while whites comprise 74 percent of the total suburban population, the average Latino suburbanite lives in a neighborhood that is just 55 percent white, down from 72 percent white in 1990. Blacks, while increasing in the suburbs at a slower pace, are also approaching the 1 in 10 mark. Black/white segregation has seen slight improvement but is still dramatically higher than that of other racial/ethnic groups. Chicago ranks as the 4th most segregated large metro for blacks.

Population growth in the City of Chicago has been substantially slower, but any increase at all is noteworthy. With the white populations decreasing and black population unchanged, Latinos accounted for the bulk of the increase and now make up one in four city residents. Racial segregation in Chicago remains high but declined marginally for most groups and dropped significantly between Asians and whites. A careful examination of neighborhood change shows that Asians are adopting settlement patterns similar to whites and that areas attracting Asians are also showing substantial white growth.

Growth rates of minority homeowners outstripped even the rapid minority population increase. One might expect that racial segregation among homeowners might be less than among the overall population, given higher levels of owner income and lack of the type of subsidized housing that has helped to concentrate renters by race in the past. But segregation between white and minority homeowners is on par with segregation levels among the overall population. It is especially high between black and white owners, regardless of city or suburban residence.

Given population increases by several different minority groups, the growth of multi-ethnic neighborhoods is notable, particularly in the suburbs, where the number of such Census tracts increased by 250 percent (from 38 to 96) in just ten years. In an urban community with a history of racial tension, neighborhood stability may be greater in multi-racial neighborhoods, but that remains to be seen.

Relatively few Census tracts that were “moderately integrated” (10-20 percent of a particular minority group) in 1990 made the dramatic transition to become “majority-minority” by 2000. Within the City of Chicago, all tracts that made this transition were predominantly Latino, none were predominantly black. Rapid transition to predominantly black and Latino tracts did take place in roughly a tenth of moderately integrated suburban areas, mostly in the southern and western suburbs respectively.

The future of the Chicago area is inexorably linked to the well-being of its minority populations, most strongly in the cities and inner-suburbs, but increasingly throughout the region. While high levels of racial segregation continue to plague inner cities, recent trends raise the specter that this pattern may be duplicated in growing suburbs. Actions at all levels are needed to assure equal access to neighborhoods and educational opportunities and to facilitate stabilization of communities.